April 2004 - slime-devel - mailman3.common-lisp.net

[slime-devel] comma shortcut doesn't work always
by Edi Weitz 31 Jan '06

31 Jan '06

Another minor glitch that I encountered is that the comma shortcut in the REPL doesn't always work. I can consistently reproduce it (GNU Emacs 21.3.50 and also 21.3 release) like this: 1. Make sure point is at the beginning of a REPL input line. 2. Split Emacs frame into two windows, one of them being the REPL the other one containing something else. 3. Hide REPL window with C-x 0. 4. Now type M-x slime. 5. Type the comma. At this point I'm not asked for a shortcut command in the minibuffer but the comma is simply entered into the REPL instead. Anybody else seeing this? Cheers, Edi.

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Re: [slime-devel] Re: CLISP SLIME implementation breaks in CVS
by Bill_Clementson＠peoplesoft.com 21 Jan '06

21 Jan '06

Luke Gorrie <luke(a)bluetail.com> writes: > Bill_Clementson(a)peoplesoft.com writes: > > > My previous SLIME installation was a CVS install from 4/18. I've just taken > > the latest CVS install and the CLISP SLIME implementation (under Windows) > > breaks. Here is the error: > > > > COERCE: #<MACRO #<COMPILED-CLOSURE SWANK::DEFSLIMEFUN>> cannot be coerced > > to type FUNCTION > > [Condition of type SIMPLE-TYPE-ERROR] > > I can reproduce this but I've no idea what is causing it. It /looks/ > like someone is trying to call defslimefun as a function rather than a > macro, but I don't see where it could happen -- the macro is declared > at the top of the only file that refers to it. > > I did fix a different but similar problem that I got under CLISP. It > seems like I had to swap the order of a couple of macros, one of which > expanded into into code that calls the other, but that surely can't be > the reason. > > > Backtrace: > > 0: EVAL frame for form (SWANK:CREATE-SWANK-SERVER 4007) > > Mine actually gives an empty backtrace (!). I fixed the Elisp-side to > handle that incase it helps someone more CLISP-savvy find the problem. Has anybody had any luck in finding the source of this problem? CLISP still breaks for me in the latest CVS. I have had a look at all of the DEFSLIMEFUN's that were modified since 4/18 (the previous CVS version that I had which was working ok with CLISP) and haven't found any obvious clues. Any suggestions on how I might debug this issue as it occurs at startup during the slime-connect processing in Emacs (after CLISP has started up successfully)? - Bill

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[slime-devel] Bug in compiler note location resolving
by Hannu Koivisto 26 Jun '04

26 Jun '04

Greetings, With SLIME CVS HEAD as of 2004-03-28T23:15Z, Emacs 21.3 and sbcl 0.8.9.6, I noticed that an attempt to slime-load-system portable hemlock results to --------------------------------------------------------------- The value ", or \\" is not of type LIST. [Condition of type TYPE-ERROR] Restarts: 0: [RETRY] Retry performing #<ASDF:COMPILE-OP NIL {A203339}> on #<HEMLOCK-SYSTEM::HEMLOCK-CL-SOURCE-FILE "main" {98D2271}>. 1: [ACCEPT] Continue, treating #<ASDF:COMPILE-OP NIL {A203339}> on #<HEMLOCK-SYSTEM::HEMLOCK-CL-SOURCE-FILE "main" {98D2271}> as having been successful. 2: [ABORT] Return to SLIME toplevel. 3: [ABORT] Reduce debugger level (leaving debugger, returning to toplevel). 4: [TOPLEVEL] Restart at toplevel READ/EVAL/PRINT loop. Backtrace: 0: (NTHCDR 2 2 ", or \\")[:EXTERNAL] 1: (SWANK-BACKEND::SOURCE-PATH-SOURCE-POSITION (0 5 2 2) (NIL NIL (NIL NIL NIL (NIL NIL) (NIL (NIL "DISPLAY"))) "Invokes the editor, Hemlock. If X is supplied and is a symbol, the definition of X is put into a buffer, and that buffer is selected. If X is a pathname, the file specified by X is visited in a new buffer. If X is not supplied or Nil, the editor is entered in the same state as when last exited. When :init is supplied as t (the default), the file \\" NIL ", or \\" NIL " is loaded from the home directory, but the Lisp command line switch -hinit can be used to specify a different name. Any compiled version of the source is preferred when choosing the file to load. If the argument is non-nil and not t, then it should be a pathname that will be merged with the home directory." (NIL NIL (NIL "You are already in the editor, you bogon!")) (NIL ((NIL NIL) (NIL (NIL NIL (NIL NIL) (NIL NIL)))) (NIL (QUOTE NIL) (NIL (NIL NIL (NIL NIL) (NIL NIL NIL) (NIL (NIL NIL))) (NIL (QUOTE NIL) (NIL (QUOTE NIL) (NIL ((NIL NIL (NIL NIL)) (NIL ((NIL (NIL (NIL (QUOTE NIL) "Edit " (NIL NIL)))) (NIL (NIL (NIL NIL NIL) (NIL NIL))) (NIL NIL)) (NIL (NIL NIL)) (NIL (NIL (NIL NIL)) (NIL (QUOTE (NIL NIL))) (NIL) (NIL NIL) (NIL (NIL NIL))))) ((NIL (NIL NIL) (NIL NIL)) (NIL NIL NIL)) (NIL (NIL "~S is not a symbol or pathname. I can't edit it!" NIL)))) (NIL NIL) (NIL (NIL (NIL (QUOTE NIL) (NIL ((NIL (FUNCTION (NIL (NIL) (NIL NIL NIL))))) (NIL NIL) (NIL)))) (NIL NIL))))))) #<HASH-TABLE :TEST EQ :COUNT 85 {A9BC909}>) 2: (SWANK-BACKEND::SOURCE-PATH-STREAM-POSITION (20 5 2 2) #<FILE-STREAM for "file \"/home/azure/projects/software/hemlock/src/main.lisp\"" {AF82DA9}>) 3: (SWANK-BACKEND::SOURCE-PATH-FILE-POSITION (20 5 2 2) #P"/home/azure/projects/software/hemlock/src/main.lisp") 4: ((SWANK-BACKEND::RESOLVE-NOTE-LOCATION ((EQL NIL) PATHNAME T T T)) #<unused argument> #<unused argument> #<unused argument> #P"/home/azure/projects/software/hemlock/src/main.lisp" #<unused argument> (20 5 2 2) #<unused argument>) 5: (SWANK-BACKEND::COMPILER-NOTE-LOCATION #S(SB-C::COMPILER-ERROR-CONTEXT :ENCLOSING-SOURCE ("UNWIND-PROTECT" "FLET" "BLOCK" "MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND" "MULTIPLE-VALUE-CALL" "BLOCK" "SB-C::%WITHIN-CLEANUP" "RETURN-FROM" "PROGN") :SOURCE (" (LET ((HEMLOCK-INTERNALS:*BEEP-FUNCTION* #'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::HEMLOCK-BEEP) (HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*GC-NOTIFY-BEFORE* #'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::HEMLOCK-GC-NOTIFY-BEFORE) (HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*GC-NOTIFY-AFTER* #'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::HEMLOCK-GC-NOTIFY-AFTER) (*STANDARD-INPUT* HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*ILLEGAL-READ-STREAM*) (*QUERY-IO* HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*ILLEGAL-READ-STREAM*)) (COND ((NOT HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*EDITOR-WINDOWED-INPUT*) (UNLESS HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*EDITOR-HAS-BEEN-ENTERED* # # #) (CATCH 'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::HEMLOCK-EXIT # # #)) (T (HEMLOCK-EXT:WITH-CLX-EVENT-HANDLING # # #))))") :ORIGINAL-SOURCE " (HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::SITE-WRAPPER-MACRO (UNLESS HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*EDITOR-HAS-BEEN-ENTERED* (HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::%INIT-REDISPLAY HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::DISPLAY) (SETQ HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*EDITOR-HAS-BEEN-ENTERED* T) (HEMLOCK-INTERFACE:INVOKE-HOOK (REVERSE HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*AFTER-EDITOR-INITIALIZATIONS-FUNS*))) (CATCH 'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::HEMLOCK-EXIT (CATCH 'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::EDITOR-TOP-LEVEL-CATCHER (COND # # #)) (HEMLOCK-INTERFACE:INVOKE-HOOK HEMLOCK::ENTRY-HOOK) (UNWIND-PROTECT (LOOP #) (HEMLOCK-INTERFACE:INVOKE-HOOK HEMLOCK::EXIT-HOOK))))" :CONTEXT ((DEFUN HEMLOCK)) :FILE-NAME #P"/home/azure/projects/software/hemlock/src/main.lisp" :FILE-POSITION 9218 :ORIGINAL-SOURCE-PATH (2 2 5 20))) 6: (SWANK-BACKEND::SIGNAL-COMPILER-CONDITION #<SB-INT:SIMPLE-STYLE-WARNING {AF79091}> #S(SB-C::COMPILER-ERROR-CONTEXT :ENCLOSING-SOURCE ("UNWIND-PROTECT" "FLET" "BLOCK" "MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND" "MULTIPLE-VALUE-CALL" "BLOCK" "SB-C::%WITHIN-CLEANUP" "RETURN-FROM" "PROGN") :SOURCE (" (LET ((HEMLOCK-INTERNALS:*BEEP-FUNCTION* #'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::HEMLOCK-BEEP) (HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*GC-NOTIFY-BEFORE* #'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::HEMLOCK-GC-NOTIFY-BEFORE) (HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*GC-NOTIFY-AFTER* #'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::HEMLOCK-GC-NOTIFY-AFTER) (*STANDARD-INPUT* HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*ILLEGAL-READ-STREAM*) (*QUERY-IO* HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*ILLEGAL-READ-STREAM*)) (COND ((NOT HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*EDITOR-WINDOWED-INPUT*) (UNLESS HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*EDITOR-HAS-BEEN-ENTERED* # # #) (CATCH 'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::HEMLOCK-EXIT # # #)) (T (HEMLOCK-EXT:WITH-CLX-EVENT-HANDLING # # #))))") :ORIGINAL-SOURCE " (HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::SITE-WRAPPER-MACRO (UNLESS HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*EDITOR-HAS-BEEN-ENTERED* (HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::%INIT-REDISPLAY HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::DISPLAY) (SETQ HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*EDITOR-HAS-BEEN-ENTERED* T) (HEMLOCK-INTERFACE:INVOKE-HOOK (REVERSE HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*AFTER-EDITOR-INITIALIZATIONS-FUNS*))) (CATCH 'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::HEMLOCK-EXIT (CATCH 'HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::EDITOR-TOP-LEVEL-CATCHER (COND # # #)) (HEMLOCK-INTERFACE:INVOKE-HOOK HEMLOCK::ENTRY-HOOK) (UNWIND-PROTECT (LOOP #) (HEMLOCK-INTERFACE:INVOKE-HOOK HEMLOCK::EXIT-HOOK))))" :CONTEXT ((DEFUN HEMLOCK)) :FILE-NAME #P"/home/azure/projects/software/hemlock/src/main.lisp" :FILE-POSITION 9218 :ORIGINAL-SOURCE-PATH (2 2 5 20))) 7: (SWANK-BACKEND::HANDLE-NOTIFICATION-CONDITION #<SB-INT:SIMPLE-STYLE-WARNING {AF79091}>) 8: (SIGNAL 1 #<SB-INT:SIMPLE-STYLE-WARNING {AF79091}>)[:EXTERNAL] 9: (SB-C::COMPILER-STYLE-WARNING-HANDLER 1 #<SB-INT:SIMPLE-STYLE-WARNING {AF79091}>)[:EXTERNAL] 10: (SIGNAL 1 #<SB-INT:SIMPLE-STYLE-WARNING {AF79091}>)[:EXTERNAL] 11: (WARN 5 SB-INT:SIMPLE-STYLE-WARNING)[:EXTERNAL] 12: (SB-C::NOTE-LEXICAL-BINDING 1 HEMLOCK-INTERNALS::*GC-NOTIFY-BEFORE*)[:EXTERNAL] . . . --------------------------------------------------------------- It seems that SLIME has read the docstring as several forms even though it really is just one form. You can reproduce the problem by putting the following code to a file and then invoking slime-compile-and-load-file on it. --------------------------------------------------------------- (defun cl-user::foo (&optional x &key (init t) (display "")) "Invokes the editor, Hemlock. If X is supplied and is a symbol, the definition of X is put into a buffer, and that buffer is selected. If X is a pathname, the file specified by X is visited in a new buffer. If X is not supplied or Nil, the editor is entered in the same state as when last exited. When :init is supplied as t (the default), the file \"hemlock-init.lisp\", or \".hemlock-init.lisp\" is loaded from the home directory, but the Lisp command line switch -hinit can be used to specify a different name. Any compiled version of the source is preferred when choosing the file to load. If the argument is non-nil and not t, then it should be a pathname that will be merged with the home directory." (when *in-the-editor* (error "You are already in the editor, you bogon!")) (let ((*in-the-editor* t) (display (unless *editor-has-been-entered* (maybe-load-hemlock-init init) ;; Device dependent initializaiton. (init-raw-io display)))) (catch 'editor-top-level-catcher (site-wrapper-macro (unless *editor-has-been-entered* ;; Make an initial window, and set up redisplay's internal ;; data structures. (%init-redisplay display) (setq *editor-has-been-entered* t) ;; Pick up user initializations to be done after initialization. (invoke-hook (reverse *after-editor-initializations-funs*))) (catch 'hemlock-exit (catch 'editor-top-level-catcher (cond ((and x (symbolp x)) (let* ((name (nstring-capitalize (concatenate 'simple-string "Edit " (string x)))) (buffer (or (getstring name *buffer-names*) (make-buffer name))) (*print-case* :downcase)) (delete-region (buffer-region buffer)) (with-output-to-mark (*standard-output* (buffer-point buffer)) (eval `(grindef ,x)) ; hackish, I know... (terpri) (change-to-buffer buffer) (buffer-start (buffer-point buffer))))) ((or (stringp x) (pathnamep x)) (find-file-command () x)) (x (error "~S is not a symbol or pathname. I can't edit it!" x)))) (invoke-hook entry-hook) (unwind-protect (loop (catch 'editor-top-level-catcher (handler-bind ((error #'(lambda (condition) (lisp-error-error-handler condition :internal)))) (invoke-hook abort-hook) (%command-loop)))) (invoke-hook exit-hook))))))) --------------------------------------------------------------- -- Hannu

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[slime-devel] cannot start slime
by Henrique Rodrigues 12 May '04

12 May '04

good evening, it's my first time using slime, but i can't seem to make it start. after configuring my .emacs, i try to run the command "slime", but after displaying the message "Swank started at port: 1038" it breaks. the backtrace shows: Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument stringp nil) looking-at(nil) hs-hide-block-at-point() slime-log-event((:open-dedicated-output-stream 1040)) slime-dispatch-event((:open-dedicated-output-stream 1040) #<process SLIME Lisp>) slime-process-available-input() slime-net-filter(#<process SLIME Lisp> "^@^@%(:open-dedicated-output-stream 1040)\n") i don't really understand what's going on, but shouldn't it try to open the stream on port 1038, where swank is listening? what can i do to fix this? thank you, henrique rodrigues -- Henrique Miguel Teodoro Rodrigues http://www.rnl.ist.utl.pt/~hmtr Engenharia Informatica e de Computadores - Instituto Superior Tecnico

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[slime-devel] Slime with SBCL on OS X is broken
by Thomas F. Burdick 11 May '04

11 May '04

Got my Mac back from being repaired yesterday, and tried to update my SLIME. Compiling today's CVS with sbcl-0.8.8 dies when it catches a SIGBUS when compiling swank.lisp. I'll try cvs time-travel between April 9 and today sometime over the next week, if no one gets to it first, but if anyone has time, this is a heads-up.

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[slime-devel] SLIME Edit Definition
by Lynn Quam 05 May '04

05 May '04

I note that Edit Definition (meta-dot) in SLIME is inaccurate in positioning "point" when the buffer(file) has been modified by adding, removing or rearranging parts of the buffer(file). I recognize that this is, in general, a difficult problem. Is the "pragmatic solution" to do "Compile/Load File" when changes to the buffer make the source code location information useless? Back in the "good old days" with (1mhz) Symbolics Lisp Machines and the ZWEI editor, "buffer sectionization" did a pretty good job of keeping track of the source code locations. This allowed top level white-space and modifications of function defintions to be made without losing track of the source code location. Are there any thoughts about makeing slime.el smarter about changes to the Lisp source code?

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[slime-devel] Backup tags handling for M-.
by Dave Roberts 02 May '04

02 May '04

I was using Emacs to do some Lisp code browsing the other day. Along the way, I was trying to jump around to some definitions. I tried using M-. but the code had not been compiled or loaded into the inferior Lisp process. As a result, SLIME complained that it didn't know about the defun I was looking for. I turned off SLIME mode and generated a tags file using standard emacs. Using standard emacs Lisp-mode, I was able to browse the definitions using the tags file. So, the question is, is it possible for SLIME to fall back to using the tags file like emacs Lisp-mode when it's standard behavior fails? Now, I could just go around turning off slime-mode every time I load a file, but that's really a pain. Since I have set up a mode hook, every Lisp file loads with slime-mode by default, which is how I want things most of the time when I'm developing. The problem is when trying to browse a library. Even if you turn slime-mode off for one file, it turns itself back on as soon as you use M-. with standard lisp-mode. -- Dave Roberts <ldave(a)droberts.com>

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[slime-devel] Some more variables for customizing Slime (patch)
by Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 01 May '04

01 May '04

Hi. I just started using Slime twenty minutes ago, and here's a patch to, er, make it look like I want it to. *** ChangeLog.~1.357.~ Thu Apr 29 00:25:05 2004 --- ChangeLog Thu Apr 29 11:34:06 2004 *************** *** 1,3 **** --- 1,12 ---- + 2004-04-29 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi(a)netfonds.no> + + * slime.el (slime-event-buffer-name): New variable. + (slime-events-buffer): Use it. + (slime-space-information-p): Ditto. + (slime-space): Use it. + (slime-reply-update-banner-p): Ditto. + (slime-repl-update-banner): Use it. + 2004-04-28 Helmut Eller <e9626484(a)stud3.tuwien.ac.at> * swank-loader.lisp (*lisp-name*): Add versioning support for *** slime.el.~1.282.~ Wed Apr 28 18:45:01 2004 --- slime.el Thu Apr 29 11:33:59 2004 *************** *** 114,119 **** --- 114,128 ---- "Function to use for translating Lisp filenames to Emacs filenames. See also `slime-translate-to-lisp-filename-function'.") + (defvar slime-event-buffer-name "*slime-events*" + "The name of the Slime event buffer.") + + (defvar slime-space-information-p t + "Whether the SPC key should offer information or not.") + + (defvar slime-reply-update-banner-p t + "Whether Slime should keep a repl banner updated or not.") + ;;; Customize group *************** *** 1665,1672 **** (goto-char (point-max))))) (defun slime-events-buffer () ! (or (get-buffer "*slime-events*") ! (let ((buffer (get-buffer-create "*slime-events*"))) (with-current-buffer buffer (set (make-local-variable 'outline-regexp) "^(") (set (make-local-variable 'comment-start) ";") --- 1674,1681 ---- (goto-char (point-max))))) (defun slime-events-buffer () ! (or (get-buffer slime-event-buffer-name) ! (let ((buffer (get-buffer-create slime-event-buffer-name))) (with-current-buffer buffer (set (make-local-variable 'outline-regexp) "^(") (set (make-local-variable 'comment-start) ";") *************** *** 1821,1827 **** (expand-file-name default-directory)))) ;; Emacs21 has the fancy persistent header-line. (cond ((boundp 'header-line-format) ! (setq header-line-format banner) (pop-to-buffer (current-buffer)) (when (fboundp 'animate-string) ;; and dancing text --- 1830,1837 ---- (expand-file-name default-directory)))) ;; Emacs21 has the fancy persistent header-line. (cond ((boundp 'header-line-format) ! (when slime-reply-update-banner-p ! (setq header-line-format banner)) (pop-to-buffer (current-buffer)) (when (fboundp 'animate-string) ;; and dancing text *************** *** 1830,1836 **** 0 0))) (slime-repl-insert-prompt "")) (t ! (slime-repl-insert-prompt (concat "; " banner)) (pop-to-buffer (current-buffer)))))) (defun slime-init-output-buffer (connection) --- 1840,1849 ---- 0 0))) (slime-repl-insert-prompt "")) (t ! (slime-repl-insert-prompt ! (if slime-reply-update-banner-p ! (concat "; " banner) ! "")) (pop-to-buffer (current-buffer)))))) (defun slime-init-output-buffer (connection) *************** *** 3247,3253 **** more than one space." (interactive "p") (self-insert-command n) ! (when (and (slime-connected-p) (or (not (slime-busy-p)) ;; XXX should we enable this? ;; (not slime-use-sigint-for-interrupt)) --- 3260,3267 ---- more than one space." (interactive "p") (self-insert-command n) ! (when (and slime-space-information-p ! (slime-connected-p) (or (not (slime-busy-p)) ;; XXX should we enable this? ;; (not slime-use-sigint-for-interrupt)) *************** *** 5409,5415 **** (def-slime-selector-method ?v "the *slime-events* buffer." ! "*slime-events*") (def-slime-selector-method ?l "the most recently visited lisp-mode buffer." --- 5423,5429 ---- (def-slime-selector-method ?v "the *slime-events* buffer." ! slime-event-buffer-name) (def-slime-selector-method ?l "the most recently visited lisp-mode buffer." *************** *** 6000,6006 **** "Kill all the slime related buffers. This is only used by the repl command sayoonara." (dolist (buf (buffer-list)) ! (when (or (member (buffer-name buf) '("*inferior-lisp*" "*slime-events*")) (string-match "\*slime-repl\[\d+\]\*" (buffer-name buf)) (string-match "\*sldb .*\*" (buffer-name buf))) (kill-buffer buf)))) --- 6014,6021 ---- "Kill all the slime related buffers. This is only used by the repl command sayoonara." (dolist (buf (buffer-list)) ! (when (or (member (buffer-name buf) '("*inferior-lisp*" ! slime-event-buffer-name)) (string-match "\*slime-repl\[\d+\]\*" (buffer-name buf)) (string-match "\*sldb .*\*" (buffer-name buf))) (kill-buffer buf)))) -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) larsi(a)gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

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[slime-devel] ABORT restart in OpenMCL not working
by Luke Gorrie 01 May '04

01 May '04

Howdy, If you fire up SLIME in OpenMCL and pull up SLDB (e.g. with (/ 1 0)) then it seems the ABORT restart ('a') doesn't work. Invoking it seems to just return nil instead of aborting the evaluation. Anyone know what's up?

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Re: [slime-devel] Re: NEWS
by Bill_Clementson＠peoplesoft.com 30 Apr '04

30 Apr '04

Luke Gorrie <luke(a)bluetail.com> writes: > Helmut Eller <e9626484(a)stud3.tuwien.ac.at> writes: > > > Today we received bugreports like "CLISP hangs on startup", "SBCL dies > > with SIGBUS", "can't set FPU modes". Desn't seem like SLIME is ready > > for release and making a tarball will not help us getting there. > > I agree. Our current rock&roll development style makes this all pretty > easy to handle: "Foo is broken [here's a patch]." "Fixed in CVS now." > Much more fun than "That'll be fixed in the next release." > > The important thing is to make the best Emacs programming mode known > to man in the fastest and most enjoyable way. The rest is secondary. > > But thanks Brian for the vote of confidence in the current maturity! > However, I think having cautious people avoid SLIME initially is a > much lesser evil than having them download it thinking it's more > mature than it really is and then curse and swear at it. > > BTW, SLIME is the most fun project I've been involved in and I > attribute much of this to everyone using the same CVS code. With 31 > hackers listed in the ChangeLog we must be doing something right :-) I agree with Brian that SLIME is mature enough for a release. However, I also agree with Luke that it's more fun working with the CVS copy. The reasons that most people want a release are: 1. Some people don't like downloading out of CVS and prefer a tarball. 2. A release provides a "fixed" snapshot that you can be pretty sure works (more or less) 3. A release says to the world "We're ready for users now" I don't know if these reasons really apply to SLIME. For #1, as Helmut has mentioned, it is possible to download a tarball of the current CVS SLIME from: http://common-lisp.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/cvs_root.tar.gz?tarball=1&cvsroo… This effectively negates #1. It might be worthwhile to mention the tarball in the docs and/or CLiki so that CVS-adverse users aren't scared away. Reason #2 isn't really that important either, since the turn-around on bugs is so quick :-). For the super-wary, the FAIRLY-STABLE download provides an alternative. Is a tarball of the FAIRLY-STABLE code available also? Reason #3 is a subjective consideration. I know that I held off trying SLIME for a long time because I thought it was still a work-in-progress and not ready for production use. However, there are a lot of people recommending SLIME now and I would say that it has the highest mindshare of the Emacs CL modes. You guys just have to learn to bite your tongues and stop saying it isn't mature enough yet ;-) The downside to producing a release is that you encourage people to take the "stable" release as opposed to the "flaky" CVS version. This divides users and means that there are fewer eyes checking the latest code. When you have a stable, slow-changing product, this is ok. However, since there is so much active (and enthusiastic) development on SLIME, I'd say there isn't a lot of benefit in producing a "Release" yet. - Bill

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